St Peter Damian: Life, Writings, Prayer and Feast Day

St Peter Damian (c. 1007-1072) was a hermit of Fonte Avellana whom the popes drew out of his cell to make him cardinal-bishop of Ostia and to send him, as their legate, against the two great evils of the eleventh-century Church: simony and the incontinence of the clergy. Leo XII declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1828, and the Roman calendar of 1962 keeps his feast on 23 February. Here is his life, what he is known for and invoked for, his writings, and the prayer of his Mass in the Missal of 1962.

Who was St Peter Damian?

Peter was born at Ravenna, about the year 1007, into a large family. The lessons of his feast in the Roman Breviary tell a hard beginning: his mother, weary of her many children, cast him off while he was still at the breast; a woman of the household took in the half-dead infant and revived him, and he was given back to his mother once she had been recalled to a mother's feeling. Both his parents died while he was still small, and he passed into the keeping of a brother who, Butler says, treated him "more like a slave than a kinsman" and sent him out to tend swine.

The Breviary keeps one story from those years. The boy found a coin on the road; instead of buying himself bread, he gave it to a priest to offer the Holy Sacrifice for the soul of his father.

Another brother, Damian, archpriest of Ravenna, took pity on him and had him educated, first at Faenza, then at Parma. Peter took his surname from this brother, as the Breviary says, "as is related". He did so well that his masters admired him, and he became in turn a teacher of great reputation. Even then he wore a hair shirt under his fine clothes, fasted, watched, and prayed the whole psalter; when temptations of the flesh pressed him, he would go out at night and plunge into the icy water of the river. He kept poor men at his table and served them with his own hands.

Fonte Avellana and the hermit's life

About 1035 he left the world. Two hermits of Fonte Avellana, in the diocese of Gubbio, a community founded by Blessed Ludolph, a disciple of St Romuald, happened to call at the house where he lived, and what they told him of their life decided him. The hermits lived two by two in separate cells, given to prayer, reading and great austerity.

Peter outdid them all at first, and his excessive night watches brought on a severe insomnia, cured with difficulty, which taught him, Butler says, "to use more discretion". He gave himself instead to the study of Holy Scripture. His abbot sent him to the monasteries of Pomposa and of St Vincent of Pietra Pertusa, both of which he built up by his preaching, his teaching and his example; then, recalled, he was made prior of Fonte Avellana about 1043, against his will and under obedience. He founded five other hermitages under priors of his own, and governed so wisely that the Breviary calls him "a second father of that order and its chief ornament". Among his disciples were St Dominic Loricatus and St John of Lodi, who succeeded him and wrote his life.

What is St Peter Damian known for?

The reformer of the clergy

Peter Damian is remembered above all as a reformer. Simony, the buying and selling of sacred offices, was then common, and many priests lived openly with women. Peter fought both "unto death", as the Breviary says, by letters, treatises and legations, and Butler counts him among "the chief forerunners of the Hildebrandine reform", the great reform of the Church that takes its name from Hildebrand, who became Pope St Gregory VII. He upheld clerical celibacy, urged the secular clergy to live in common, and asked monks to keep their cells and their poverty.

In 1057 Pope Stephen IX, overruling his resistance, made him cardinal and bishop of Ostia. In the service of the popes he reconciled the Church of Milan to the Roman Church, resisted the antipopes Benedict and Cadalous, recalled the people of Ravenna to their obedience to the Pope, and reformed the canons of Velletri. As legate of Alexander II, he went to Frankfurt and faced the young King Henry IV of Germany, who wanted to put away his wife Bertha on a pretext; before the legate and his own nobles, the king gave up the divorce.

He begged again and again to be allowed to lay down his see, and Alexander II at last consented, keeping the right to call on him. Peter went back to his cell as a simple monk. There he made wooden spoons and other small useful things, so that his hands should never be idle between work and prayer.

A stern saint, and a gentle one

His style is vehement, and Butler gives two examples. He rebuked the bishop of Florence for playing a game of chess, and the bishop, accepting the reproof, did penance by saying the psalter three times and washing the feet of twelve poor men. He wrote a treatise to the bishop of Besançon against the custom by which the canons of that church sang the Divine Office seated in choir. Yet the same Butler adds that he "could treat penitents with mildness and indulgence where charity and prudence required it".

The devotions he spread

The Breviary credits him with spreading three practices that have stayed in the Church: the Friday fast in honour of the Holy Cross of Jesus Christ, the daily recitation of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin (the Little Office of Our Lady), and the keeping of Saturday in her honour. He also encouraged the voluntary use of the discipline as a penance for sins committed, and recommended it in place of long penitential fasts. His insistence on penance, and on the Friday fast in particular, is still familiar to anyone who keeps the traditional observance of Lent.

The Book of Gomorrah

His best-known treatise today is the Liber Gomorrhianus, the "Book of Gomorrah", written around 1050 and dedicated to Pope St Leo IX. In it he denounced the vices of some of the clergy of his day, above all the sins against nature. The book is severe, as its subject required; it is also the cry of a pastor who wanted the clergy to be holy.

St Peter Damian quotes

Butler preserves a sentence of his on monastic discipline that could stand for his whole life:

"We can never restore primitive discipline when once it is decayed; and if we, by negligence, suffer any diminution in what remains established, future ages will never be able to repair the breach. Let us not draw upon ourselves so foul a reproach; but let us faithfully transmit to posterity the example of virtue which we have received from our forefathers."

A writer quoted by Butler summed him up: "an extraordinary moral force burns in all that he wrote".

How did St Peter Damian die?

His last mission was to Ravenna, where the archbishop had died excommunicated; Peter brought the archbishop's accomplices to repentance and reconciled the city. Returning towards Rome, he was stopped by fever at a monastery outside Faenza, and died on the eighth day of his illness, 22 February 1072, while the monks were reciting Matins around him. That is the date given by Butler and by the Breviary ("the eighth day before the Kalends of March"); some historians give 21 February.

He was buried at Faenza, where his body was venerated in the church of the Cistercians, and the people of Faenza more than once chose him as their intercessor in time of danger. His relics have been moved several times, and since 1898 they have rested in a chapel of his own in the cathedral of Faenza.

How did St Peter Damian become a saint?

There was no formal canonization. He was venerated as a saint from the day of his death, at Faenza, at Fonte Avellana and in the Camaldolese order, which kept his Office and Mass. In 1828 Pope Leo XII, on the advice of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, extended his Office and Mass to the whole Church and added the title of Doctor of the Church. Butler calls his writing "voluminous": letters, sermons and treatises on the priesthood, the monastic life and the reform of the Church.

St Peter Damian prayer (Missal of 1962)

His Mass is from the Common of Doctors, In medio Ecclesiae, with the Gospel "You are the salt of the earth"; the Collect is his own.

Collect, 23 February

Concede nos, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus: beati Petri Confessoris tui atque Pontificis monita et exempla sectari; ut per terrestrium rerum contemptum aeterna gaudia consequamur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Grant us, we beseech Thee, almighty God, to follow the counsels and the examples of blessed Peter, Thy Confessor and Bishop, that by contempt of earthly things we may attain to everlasting joys. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

The Collect is the simplest prayer to St Peter Damian for any day of the year. For nine days of prayer before his feast, the app and this site also give a novena to St Peter Damian.

What is St Peter Damian the patron saint of?

The Church has never assigned him an official patronage. The Breviary records that the people of Faenza, where he died, more than once chose him as their intercessor in time of danger, and that the Camaldolese order kept his Office and Mass before Leo XII extended them to the whole Church. Since his life was spent for the holiness of the clergy, it is fitting to ask his prayers for the reform of the clergy; but this is a pious suggestion, not an assigned patronage.

St Peter Damian and insomnia

Many people today pray to him for sleep and against insomnia, and he is often called the patron of those who suffer from it. This is a modern popular devotion, not an ancient or official patronage, and it rests on a true page of his life: Butler records that as a young hermit he brought on a severe insomnia by excessive watching, and was cured of it with difficulty. It is reasonable to ask the intercession of a saint who knew that trial. The Collect above may be joined to the Church's own prayer before sleep, Compline, or to the traditional night prayers.

When is St Peter Damian's feast day?

In the Roman calendar of 1962, the feast of St Peter Damian, Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church, falls on 23 February, a feast of the third class in white vestments; when it falls in Lent, the Lenten weekday takes precedence and the saint is commemorated. He died on 22 February, which in the Roman calendar is the feast of the Chair of St Peter at Antioch; his own feast is kept on the 23rd. In leap years it remains on 23 February. The calendar of 1969 moved his feast to 21 February, as an optional memorial. You will find it in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and St Peter Damian takes his place in our guide to the Catholic saints, listed by feast day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What religious order did St Peter Damian join?

He became a hermit-monk of Fonte Avellana, a community living under the Rule of St Benedict according to the eremitical reform of St Romuald, and he later governed it as prior.

When was St Peter Damian born?

At Ravenna, about the year 1007.

Was St Peter Damian a cardinal?

Yes. Pope Stephen IX made him cardinal-bishop of Ostia in 1057, against his will; he later obtained leave to lay down his see and return to his hermitage.

Why is St Peter Damian a Doctor of the Church?

Because of the depth and moral force of his many writings on the priesthood, the monastic life and the reform of the Church. Leo XII gave him the title in 1828.

Why do Catholics honor St Peter Damian?

For a life of penance and prayer joined to tireless service of the Church: he defended the holiness of the clergy against simony and impurity, served several popes, and remained a monk at heart, returning to his cell as soon as he was allowed.

Where is St Peter Damian buried?

At Faenza, in a chapel dedicated to him in the cathedral.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962, the Breviary, a novena to St Peter Damian and the traditional calendar, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 23 February (St Peter Damian, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, Doctor of the Church). Roman Breviary (edition before 1960), 23 February, lessons of the second nocturn (in the Breviary of 1962 this third-class feast has a single, contracted lesson). Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 23 February, and Common of Doctors.